the day you left me in the cold was the day i knew you loved me .
love isn't a dish served hot ,
but a flower that is frozen in an ice cube and put in a cup so that it may slightly touch your lips
every once in a while .
i told you that i thought icicles were magic ,
and the next day you brought me an icicle from the neighbor's roof ,
so sharp i could stab a hole in my heart ,
and placed it in my freezer .

i kept that magic in my freezer for 4 months , until i broke my finger and needed something to reduce the swelling .

love is like that ,
not always magic ..... sometimes it's just
melting .
sometimes it's black and blue .
sometimes it hurts the most .
last night i saw your ghost
peddling a bicycle with a basket past a moon as full as my heavy head
and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like E.T.
with my glowing heart beating out of my chest
and my glowing finger tips point toward our home .

you built me a time capsule full of juicy fruit and promised never to burst my bubble .
i want our first date to be at the batting cages ,
where i'll miss every hit , but you'll still look at me with your starry eyes like i'm a home run in the ninth inning of the world series .
now every time i think of love , i think
going , going ......

the first week you were gone to college
i kept seeing your hand wave goodbye like a windsheild wiper in a flooding car
in the last real moment i thought the hurricane would let me out alive .

yesterday , i carved your name into an ice cube and held it against my heart until it melted
into my aching pores
today , i cried so hard that the neighbors knocked on my door and asked if i wanted to borrow some
sugar ...
i told them i had left my sweet tooth in your mouth .

love isn't always magic ,
but i offered my life to a magician ; i told him to cut me in half just so i could come back to you
whole
and ask for you back , would you listen ?

i wrote too many poems in a language i did not yet know how to speak ,
but i know now
it doesn't matter how well i say grace if i am sitting at a table where i am offering no bread to eat .
so this is my wheat field ,
you can have every acre , love ..
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight with that bitter frost .

tonight , i begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key ,
but in tune ....
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand , every strand of my hair is a kite string ,
and i have been blue in the face with your sky , crying a flood over iowa so you mother will wake to venice .

lover , i smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest ..
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible ;
it is the one verse you can trust .
so i'm putting all of my words in the collection plate ,
i am setting the table with bread and grace .
my knees are bent , like the corner of a page ;
i am saving your place .